Foot Archer Tactics - Bannerlord Battlefield Tactics Guide

[@irish2772]

Tip for people who may not know. If you left click the icon above the archers then left click the ground and drag right, you can extend the formation. I use that technique in conjunction with "loose formation" and it's devastating. Like Strat said, the key is to make it so the archers don't get in each other's way. Then I put an infantry column behind them for a counter charge for when the enemy gets to close. Just make sure you drag left to right. If you drag right to left they'll be facing you.

[@ItsNotMyWallet]

THATS WHY MY DAMN TROOPS ARE ALWAYS BACKWARDS. Thanks random guy

[@irish2772]

@@ItsNotMyWallet you're welcome, random guy.

[@ryanpresquatt9266]

Is this possible for console at all?

[@irish2772]

@@ryanpresquatt9266 it is.

[@irish2772]

@@ryanpresquatt9266 just realized what you meant. I'm not sure, brother. Only one way to find out. Fire up a custom battle or old save and try it out. I don't see why it shouldn't be, try whatever button is "select" on your console I assume.

[@Mikalent]

So, I use Crossbowmen over archers, I run mainly Imperial. The reason I have always advocated for Imperial Crossbow Sgts over Palatine Guard. They both have effectively the same amount of ammunition (20 bolts V 24 Arrows, with the crossbow being slightly higher damage) however the big advantage for the Imperial Crossbow Sgt is they spawn with the exact same weapons as Imperial Legionaries, a slightly worse shield, and slightly worse chest armor. This means Crossbow Sgts can serve as discount Legionaries once they run out of ammo, as Legionaries are already arguably top 5, if not outright best, melee infantry unit in the game right now. Having what are effectively slightly worse Legionaries with crossbows means that you have a unit that can at least hold its own against enemy infantry and horses, while being able to put out some range damage and join the shieldwall once they run out if ammo.

[@Strat-Guides]

That's a great point, the ammo is nearly the same but crossbows have more damage output so total potential damage is greater for the crossbows, it just takes them longer to get them all loose.

[@The_Custos]

They are also really good in sieges. AI seems to love to try and take headshots with them when defending.

[@zihaomiao5963]

from bannerlord online, the best strat is run ur archers vertical to something that the horse archers stuck on... mountains, rocks, even the edge red wall works... so that when the horse archers try to circle, it get stuck on it, forming a condensed blob, while ur archers are loose formation. something else that can work is have some shielded troops shield wall and charge while others loose and shoot.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that certainly works, I was trying to avoid using the cheesy tactics like going to the edge of the map :) It's probably the most effective though, even Khan's guards go down that way.

[@storm0fnova]

@@Strat-Guides personally i think "edge of the map" is a handicap rather than cheese. in real life i would be able to move past that edge to other areas. battles are all about out maneuvering your enemy and you can hardly do that with such small field maps less than 1k across

[@christianmunkjensen8817]

In a mountain pass there would always be a wall to stand next to.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah I agree, which is why I don't really like doing that. I try to stay away from cheese and exploits since most of the fun in these games is the challenge :)

[@phaledax3661]

@@storm0fnova In real life and in history a large consideration when taking an engagement is the terrain and your units ability to use it to best advantage.

[@joeabplanalp]

One thing I've noticed in your tests with hills is that most often you position the enemy targets at the very foot of the hill. The problem with this is that no matter where your archers are then placed on the hill, their fellow archers will sometimes be blocking their line of sight to the enemy, thus limiting the advantage you get from the hill. In a practical battle the foot of the hill would be where you place your infantry, preferably even a little further out. Properly set up, you can have every single archer in your formation firing together, even in more densely packed formations. This is amazingly helpful in large battles where it's difficult to find enough space to spread out your archers without exposing them to easy flanking. Just find a hill and do your best to fit the entire formation of archers onto the hillside facing the enemy. In a practical example you'll have infantry soaking up the enemy archer's arrows, so even in densely packed formations return fire isn't a huge deal, so long as your front line holds. One final note, I've had some great success with treating mounted archers as mobile flank instead of just setting them to charge. They seem to be FAR more accurate once they stop their horses, allowing some truly devastating volleys into the backs of an advancing shield wall.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah for sure, the main point of the test was to see if foot archers could go toe to toe with horse archers in open combat. I was hoping to find some formation or combination that would work, but it's just too steep of a deficit to make up :( Agreed, that's how I use my horse archers as well! I'm going to be doing extensive testing on horse archers next week so I'll get numbers to back that up, but I'm with on you on that!

[@stemer77]

14:08 gave me that morale boost needed for online classes. Another great video that shows actually how important is to micro your units.

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol Go on, Git!! :D It's true, micro is important for when the battles are close. I think the problem a lot of people run into is they get used to using OP armies like fian and cataphract only, then when they need to use a more realistic army in another campaign they are lost :) Hopefully these videos help some!

[@bronzejourney5784]

@@Strat-Guides Its usually how anti-player the command UI is. Sometimes i just f1+f3 a fight purely out of frustration and i go like "fuck it whatever we ball, ill replace the dead later", even though i know how to and have fought a battle in similar odds and won consistently with zero deaths before. Then i dont even participate in the fight, just get on a hill and watch the kill feed, brooding. Taleworks at it again killing my joy.

[@mikhailfilitov1479]

Another great one. So much to process in it. Honestly the most interesting bits for me involved crossbows - the range advantage and the "Musket warfare" strategy was incredible. I feel like keeping a line of infantry close behind the crossbows to follow up that devastating volley could be extremely efficient.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah I was very surprised to see how effective those crossbows were at that range. I tried it again afterwards splitting them into 3 groups all in a single line, trying to shoot, then move the 2nd row in front to shoot, then the 3rd row, then the 1st row would be reloaded etc. but it didn't work lol I tried it in loose formation too so they wouldn't get stuck trying to walk past. I need to do most testing, but it was pretty fun seeing the coordinated vollies!

[@The_Custos]

It just works.

[@Crim_Zen]

Good thing I've always done loose formation. I do it to give the enemy a harder time to hit targets in clusters. I prefer the crossbow on my hero instead of in my army. It makes mounted combat pretty easy since you can reload while riding away.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah it does seem to make quite a difference. I think that's also partially why horse archers take less damage as their line formation is similar to foot troop's loose formation. That and the horse taking damage for them.

[@SocuteRaptor]

When I played the game, I could not use crossbow on horseback. They fixed that? 😲

[@Strat-Guides]

@@SocuteRaptor Yeah there are a few that work - if you hover your mouse over the crossbow, it will have a little symbol if it's not allowed to be reloaded on horseback. The high end ones won't let you without the perk, but the lower 2 or 3 do allow it!

[@slicker83]

@@SocuteRaptor How you want reloaded crosbow on horse?

[@Strat-Guides]

It works the same as if you're on foot, just press the same button to shoot and it will start the reloading animation. The key is to get a crossbow that is allowed to be reloaded on horseback. The weaker ones allow it, so just get the cheap ones and try that.

[@Strat-Guides]

*For the Fian Champion Range testing, I accidentally typed Palatinate instead, but it's definitely the Fian Champ range at about 200m. This was a looong one to test, my apologies if the guide comes across as slightly scattered. I did my best, but probably should have taken a break at some point lol If you have not seen any of the previous 3 episodes, you can find them on the playlist here: kzbin.info/aero/PLtLh7oY6l6_-imuXlvZSFiZErbNrG06Ol

[@danielfisher5262]

Thanks for the video but 130 am seems sub optimal for the algorithm.

[@Strat-Guides]

@@danielfisher5262 I suppose I could have scheduled it for tomorrow. It's only 10pm here :) I used to hang onto these until Friday, but now I just release them as I finish them. Thank you for watching, I really appreciate it!!

[@ЯреЯреДазеОраораоров]

irl optimal range for any kind of skirmishing is about 65-75 m, from plubatas of Rome to muskets of Fridrich the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte

[@Strat-Guides]

@@ЯреЯреДазеОраораоров So it sounds like the ranges here are a bit over-exaggerated?

[@ЯреЯреДазеОраораоров]

@@Strat-Guides in theory you can launch modern arrow from modern bow up to 1km, but it uses light arrows, to minimise speed losses and gravity effects of arrow, you can open fire at range of 200 m, but arrows will lose their energy and those deal less damage per arrow (including arrows, that not reached their targets)

[@daviddavidson505]

Corner camping works as well in Bannerlord as it does in Total War. If the enemy cavalry can't circle or flank you, all they can do is confusedly stand around in optimal shooting range. When fighting Aserai and Khuzait, it always pays to pull back to the map edge. I don't like doing it because of where additional friendly troops spawn in, but it still nets better results to hug the wall and let the reinforcements deal with the pain than it is to try to remain in the spawn area and let yourself get circled by the horse archers.

[@Strat-Guides]

Good point, the edge of the map seems to ruin the AI's pathing lol It's always funny to watch them clump up and stutter step around trying to figure it out.

[@justinlast2lastharder749]

The damn AI does this to me constantly. They run back to the edge and each time I charge through them, I'm playing the "I've got ten seconds to get back on the field" game.

[@santiagopm88]

As a note though, the point of advance is not to counter standing archers, but to keep your archers away from advancing melee units. It can be sensible to place your archers in front of your melee, and advance (or withdraw) once the opposing melee approaches. That way they keep firing as they get behind your lines, and move to engage their archers once their melee breaks

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that's a great point to bring up. I like to use it for low-micro decision that are safe, like the flank in the infantry vs archer bonus. It's pretty safe because if they turn on any one of the formations, they will retreat and the other two will pursue. I think advance breaks down when the enemy isn't in shield wall and can catch up, or against cavalry etc.

[@shadowblade5656]

The tried-and-true "Stationary Loose formation, on a hill if you can get it" being the ideal is not surprising, but even so, this video was useful for me for the crossbow info. I've always tended more towards the bow and ignored crossbow troops, but seeing the differences in action makes me want to play around with them more, so thank you!

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah those hills are really important. They help blunt the cav charges too so it's never a bad thing to hold a hill. Thank you for watching!

[@DIEGhostfish]

I have a weird mix of Fians and Imperial and vlandian crossbowmen

[@Badwolfsblade]

An additional reason why high ground is so important for archers is that it makes it easier for them to shoot over hills, other obstacles and your own troops. Also, have your crossbows face the other way against enemy ranged troops. That way, they turn around when reloading, making the shields on their backs a great defensive tool

[@Strat-Guides]

Interesting, I didn't know the crossbows would turn around to reload! I'll have to try that out today - Thanks for the tip!

[@Badwolfsblade]

@@Strat-Guides Actually, I just tried it out again, and it doesn't seem to work - although I'm sure it did in a very early version of the game. I didn't play much with crossbows since I discovered the power of the Fian. Sorry for spreading misinformation

[@Strat-Guides]

@@Badwolfsblade No problem, thanks for letting me know. It's hard to match the effectiveness of Fians!

[@joselazo9799]

@@Badwolfsblade This was a passive benefit of crossbows in Warband, may have been removed in Bannerlord. I think the Crossbow skill tree gives the main character this benefit at a certain level, don't think it effects the troops though. It's also only 75% coverage.

[@kubaGR8]

@@Badwolfsblade In Bannerlord, getting hit in the shield worn on one's back doesn't stop the shot like in Warband, it just adds 15 armour to your torso.

[@medman6649]

These videos are a huge help, totally changed my play through.

[@Strat-Guides]

I'm happy to hear that! :D

[@irappzz2405]

imperial crossbowmen (t5) have the SAME melee weapon loadout as legionaries except the better armor and better shield but they are still VERY strong in close combat

[@Strat-Guides]

That's pretty crazy! I always though fians would beat anyone in head to head combat, but that doesn't seem to be the case :) I'm going to be doing unit vs unit testing real soon so I'll have a lot more data to compare it to.

[@DIEGhostfish]

@@Strat-Guides Shield+mace is OP as fuck

[@dragonzd97]

sargent crossbows are actually monsters in melee that is why you saw them slap the fians, they spawn with maces often ignoring armour and they have similiar melee states to legionaires. (although worse armour)

[@Strat-Guides]

Hm... that might be the new meta then lol skip the legionary and go straight for massed crossbows. They can shoot until the enemy reaches the line, then smack them around in melee :)

[@DIEGhostfish]

@@Strat-Guides I feel bad for the Fians then. I really like them. Might give up my vlandians for Imperial xbows though.

[@TheShyoto]

Noticed something on my batt foot only run, placing archers back left of the infantry in the hopes they could diminish the HA damage. The HA's committed to the circle came very close to the backs of my infantry before skirting further out. So I tried timing the javelin infantry to quickly spread into a thin shield line backwards and in the path of the murder circle, giving an advance order when the first horse archers clipped the line. It wasn't phenomenal, but it certainly curbed off their numbers a little bit. Will spend some time to see if I can develop it further.

[@winterzhang9898]

I'm really glad I discovered your channel. Truly amazing work! You definitely deserve more subs. Have you thought about doing a companion guide? Since the companion count is limited, it would be interesting to know which companions are the most valuable that should always be recruited. It's also worth finding out which would make the best governors or commanders, and what are the key perks they should have before giving them those positions.

[@Strat-Guides]

Thank you, I appreciate the kind words! I do have a companion guide on my list :) I was supposed to do it last month, but ran out of time. I'm hoping to get that done this month, but we will see. I have several big topics to cover in the guide so it should answer all of these questions!

[@Triumph633]

A few comments on this. Hill advantage might have a slight impact on damage output, but the main advantage is higher range and better angle of attack. The AI will always move in closer if you have archers on hills, therefore your archers will have several free volleys on them. Also melee cav cannot charge archers on a hill because they dont have the speed to couch their lances. Crossbows are really good and outperform Archers against Cavalry and esspecially against mounted archers. Crossbows are THE hardcounter against mounted archers. Crossbow are more accurate and have faster projectiles than bows, therefore they have no problems hitting moving targets and they absolutely murder the mounts of any cavalry/horse archers. They are obviously worse against any unarmored targets or Archers. In my opinion the best way to micro archers in a real battle (minmaxed) is loose formation on a hill, hold position until they are barely engaged in melee, then hold fire and charge. Yes you can technically make them shoot retreat and whatnot, but im not playing Total War im playing Bannerlord, so I think quick commands should be the way to go and this way of microing them is very easy and effective. This obviously only works well if you archers are actually good at melee (like fians, imperials and so on).

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah the range is a huge difference! I always knew it existed, but didn't realize it was that drastic. I was hoping the crossbows would be able to stand toe to toe with the horse archers in open field combat but they will weren't able to match them :( That being said, they did do much better than bowman though. They do seem to be more accurate and pack more punch. Lol good point, TW would need much more micro.

[@thadollagenerale]

The preview pic on this video is a work of art.

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol thank you! It's one of my favorite memes :)

[@1Flyffer1]

loose is the best formation, no surprise here. another unsurprising fact is you've released another amazing video!

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah I figured this one would be a bit more straight forward, although a few things did surprise me - I knew crossbows had more range, but I didn't realize it was that much of a difference! I also didn't know hills give a range bonus or penalty depending on where you are (although physically it makes sense, just didn't know TW programmed it that way). Thank you for watching!

[@jonessii]

That thumbnail cracking me up lol. You make great thumbnails for your videos :D Easily the best Bannerlord creator right now.

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol I remember when I first saw this meme I literally teared up I was laughing so hard. I'm not even sure why it's so funny. My wife was watching the show that it's from at the time so she immediately knew what it was and I watched that whole episode just to see it in the raw :D

[@crumpet-kun]

It's good to know the old faithful of putting archers on high ground and spreading them out will always be the most reliable way to use them. To be honest I wasn't expecting anything else, but then again, was anybody? Seeing Fians lose against crossbowmen in melee combat however, was a very unexpected result. It's not enough of a reason to replace my Fians, but now I know not to charge them into melee range against crossbowmen, which is good to know because I often use Fians as emergency replacement skirmishers when they (eventually) run out of arrows and my infantry need some support. A man with a sword on the frontlines is always going to be more useful than an archer on a hill with an empty quiver, even if I'd prefer to leave my Fians out of reach because in my current campaign they're not exactly a disposable resource.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah I think it was mostly common knowledge. I was a bit surprised at the range difference and also how different ranged effected damage output. I knew there was a difference from long range to close range, but didn't think it would be nearly 5x more at close range! So I was told earlier that imperial crossbows have the same mace that legionary have, making them a good counter to high armor melee troops.

[@JoycenatorGaming]

You’ve been doing some truly great work, this has been really helpful. I’ve been using Skein against horse archers with some degree of success but usually with height advantage and a small group of cavalry to guard their flanks. My best guess for this is that since horse archers like long, sweeping, arcing movements anyway it just exposes them to the skein for longer? And then obviously with height it gives them trouble with closing and/or maintaining full speed, which of course makes them easier to hit. No idea what to do in lieu of some kind of (even bad) cavalry to watch their flanks though

[@Strat-Guides]

I'm not really sure why skein would work there, I think I would have to test it out. I'm having a hard time visualizing what would be at play there. Yeah the height makes a difference for sure. We will be getting into mixed battles in the next couple of weeks which should be a bit more practical :)

[@JoycenatorGaming]

@@Strat-Guides yeah and obviously it’s anecdotal and not remotely a controlled or tested environment so who knows how much of it is just bs confirmation bias (I won so it must have worked fallacy) but it’s worth looking into I think. Can’t wait to see your results!

[@Strat-Guides]

@@JoycenatorGaming Yeah I know what you mean, there is a lot of that in the gaming community in general :) Sounds like you have a technical background as well??

[@JoycenatorGaming]

@@Strat-Guides background in education and history with a penchant for scientific analysis and data entry 😂 you?

[@Strat-Guides]

Well that makes sense then. It's not common for the average person to use that kind of lexicon :) I studied Physics and Astrophysics in college, but run my own business now so I do a lot of analysis on my own still to keep things on track!

[@fredflintstone1787]

To counter horse archers you almost always need at least a small unit of cavalry to intercept them and then try to charge with infantry, preferably 2h troops. Additionally, when I fight khuzaits I always try to get a battle map with some water and lure them in a lake/river, then it becomes much easier to get them with infantry and absolutely devastate them.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah it seems when they are forced into melee mode they fall apart (except Khan's guards lol those guys are insane)

[@fredflintstone1787]

@@Strat-Guides Oh how many times have I seen a khan's guard losing a horse, grinned like an idiot, and then watched as he whipped out his glaive and one shot 3 elite infantrymen before someone finally shot him down...

[@DIEGhostfish]

I wish there was a way to even further set attack priority for Cav to hunt bowcav most

[@RyokoEarth]

Oh man I’m so hype for this one, I was wanting to do another bannerlord run

[@Strat-Guides]

Hopefully it lives up to expectations lol thank you for watching! I'm going to be using crossbows a lot more after doing these tests.

[@frydog4217]

I'm looking forward to seeing you implement all these new tactics in your next playthrough!

[@Strat-Guides]

We are going to need it big time lol it's going to be a brutal campaign :)

[@miketrice533]

If you figure out how to defeat massed horse archers, Darius would like to know. :D I remember early on trying to use Advance for archers, thinking they'd skirmish. I quickly realized how little shooting they did. Putting them in place and letting them fire at will works really, really well. The biggest issue with loose formation is it's really vulnerable to cavalry, and it can take a lot of space in the field for larger armies.

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol yeah he get's stomped a often by them :) Yeah that's true, I'm going to be working on that in the next guide for melee cavalry so hopefully I can find some good solutions.

[@PLTakeMe]

make big line from archers, thats all

[@maffin1012]

So this game is about melee Fians and horse archers 😄 Looking forward for the next episode!

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol so it seems! Unless the enemy has imperial crossbows I guess. That was a surprise to me.

[@weak1ings]

I've found in singleplayer that keeping a number of shielded infantry can be useful for fighting horse archers, setting them to charge the horse archers while you order your archers to face direction will stop them from being able to circle you, killing the horse archers. (This also stops your archers from walking around, killing their dps)

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that's a good tactic to use. Does it differ from MP?

[@weak1ings]

@@Strat-Guides I have no experience with it but should be decent. Please let me know if you get to try it! I expect the counterplay would be to have horses follow the enemy commander who'd try to steer them around but ai isn't that smart lol. Learned this last year while conquering the khuzhaits with imperials foot troops.

[@Strat-Guides]

@@weak1ings I have not tried MP yet either because I've been on the beta branch since I started the channel. But once I finished some more guides and don't need to be on it, I'll definitely be trying it out :)

[@GuyFromPakistan-]

Best channel for mount and blade bannerlord

[@absolutechad9735]

Crossbows are really good for sieging, because they will pick off defenders on the walls with incredible accuracy. However, their lower ammo capacity and slower rate of fire really only makes them good for getting your infantry and siege engines to the walls, and that’s about it.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that's true, unless you have a lot of crossbow troops on your side to scavenge? Maybe keep a small group in the back that you can "accidentally shoot in the face" to get their ammo :D

[@sephyrrhos]

Before this test, I was already using loose formation on Archers/Crossbows, because I come from the Total War Strategy games and in these games you were using the spread out order to avoid bigger casualties from enemy archers. The only question that is left (or maybe I might have missed a video of yours) is whether trees help against enemy archer fire.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah they can, but I'm not so sure it's a big enough of an effect. As a player, we can actively hide behind trees to avoid being shot, but the AI will just stand where they are so it's all RNG if they get cover or not.

[@UCeagle79]

I felt like the first half was common knowledge and not great because of the controlled environment. I really liked the different unit testing combos and formations vs horse archers. I found a couple good strats. Corner camping especially with shields. And having 2 small units rush the horse archers while having the rest shoot. Archers can be better in several small groups.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that might be the case. I wanted to be thorough (but go through it quickly) just in case there are newer players that aren't aware. But you're right, the testing in controlled environment are meant to be like building blocks for use later when we get into mixed unit combat. Personally, I've noticed it's difficult to know exactly why certain battles are won. So without isolating formations, commands, unit types, etc. it would be nearly impossible to know why something is working well. Granted, for a late game army it's probably irrelevant because you can use terrible tactics but still win given the gap in troop quality. Yeah going to the edge of the map really messes with their ability to circle. Once we start using a full army, it will be much easier to counter, but at least it's good to know that it's nearly impossible to win in an open battle, troop for troop against horse archers.

[@MikeM-xp2pk]

Very important to keep your archer formation facing in a certain direction beforehand. It prevents a lot of the annoying movements that they do. The archers will turn in place, but the formation wont swing wildly and interrupt their shots. Ive used loose formation combined by facing in a direction to deal with their wrapping around. If you combine that by using infantry in your centre, and archers, with a small line of spearmen/pikemen in front of them to the left (in the path of the ranged cav's wrap), then it solves it very, very effectively. Crushed the eastern hordes many times with it now.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah I forgot to turn that off when I was doing the testing. It's a great point though, a lot of efficiency it lost when they move around. We are going to look at mixed unit tactics very soon so I'll be sure to implement this :)

[@siisti_sammeli]

oh someone already commented this :(

[@KageRyuu6]

Shock Infantry, except for the Pike, do extremely well when set in a Loose Formation and told to hold till after the enemy Cav Archer Charge eventually collides with the formation, from there Charge. Bout the best match up I can think of without relying on terrain.

[@Strat-Guides]

I'm working on melee cavalry next so I'll be sure to try this one while I'm at it :) Thank you!

[@michelm1988]

oh yeah baby keep them videos flowing

[@Strat-Guides]

Thank you for watching! :D

[@bjbj6002]

thank you for running all these tests mate, i appreciate the knowledge i gained

[@Strat-Guides]

I'm glad it was helpful!

[@meili4790]

Hecc yes, more knowledge! I love using archers so this is extra exciting

[@Strat-Guides]

I hope this one lives up to expectations! I certainly spent a bunch of time in the testing phase :)

[@lmaogottem5984]

against a large amount of horse archers I usually have an infantry square front and an archer circle behind them, and both formations should have the command face direction. if your archers aren't in face direction they'll keep trying to face the horse archers, and since horse archers circle at close range, your archers will spend 90% of their time running in place and not shooting. the archers are in circle formations because if they're in line or loose formation, the formation is usually long enough that the horse archers will just run over your archer line while they're trying to circle the infantry square. they're also in circle formations because it'll allow for better concentration of fire, if they're in line/loose, half of the line will be able to shoot accurately, while the other side of the line will miss most of their shots.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah they do, it's pretty annoying to see them shift slightly and stop shooting. I did try it a few times in loose formation with face direction but they still got stomped. I think it might be impossible to meet the horse archers in open battle using only archers :( I do like your suggestion though, I generally follow something similar to that as well. I love infantry squares!

[@Kamn_exe]

Just got the game and I love this series

[@Kamn_exe]

Go on, get! Giddy up!!

[@Strat-Guides]

Nice, welcome to Bannerlord! I hope all of my guides help cut that steep learning curve for you so you can get to enjoying it to the fullest :D

[@Kamn_exe]

They are a great help. Have u done a smithing guide yet?

[@Strat-Guides]

@@Kamn_exe Yup! I have 3 videos specifically for smithing - one of the skill itself and how XP works, one for the perks and another doing a 25 day challenge to see how many denars I could earn in that time period. Skill guide: kzbin.info/www/bejne/laOchq2Fh92fsLc Perk Guide: kzbin.info/www/bejne/onnHnoOAr5msnKs 25 day challenge: kzbin.info/www/bejne/paCkk5-aaqqSbck

[@Kamn_exe]

@@Strat-Guides I'll check out that denar challenge. Im struggling to make 10000 denars. I just became a vassal of Vlandia and I need to increase my income. Any tips would be appreciated.

[@The_Gallowglass]

If you have enough archers to spread across the field you can box the enemy into a corner and even make them route before they even die off.

[@Strat-Guides]

Very true, and spread that wide means they probably can't cover all the flanks!

[@The_Gallowglass]

@@Strat-Guides it's nice to have cav or cav archers to flank with while the enemy becomes Swiss cheese from fbe center

[@eise1001]

As always thanks for another amazing guide and dont forget to say LOOSE before firing medieval projectiles :D Edit: Saw you made typo at 11:00 and 11:10 on screen text says “palatine guard” when should be fian champions

[@Strat-Guides]

Thank you! I know lol I make an effort to not mess that up, but then they have a button for "Hold Fire" and that trips me up :P Yeah I realized that after I posted it and put it in the pinned comment. Woops!

[@anderson92]

I'm glad the trouble I've been having against horse archers isn't just me xD I've taken a very "if you can't beat them, join them" approach

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol yeah they are a real pain! When we get to mixed units though, it's a whole different story :D

[@leonardogarcete8370]

Strat, are you planning on remaking these kind of tactics videos for RBM changes on AI, troops and rebalances? There are next to no data on that around, and it'd be most useful for all of us that use RBM

[@rathfoks5051]

I find the best counter for horse archers is infact archers. Take a good position, go in loose formation, order them to not turn since it messes with their shot efficiency. Put your infantry in square or shield wall, turning with the enemy and have them hold fire, you want them to tank as many arrows as possible without losing troops in return. Put the infantry about 50 yards in front of the archers, slightly left of where they would normally be. The AI likes to suicide their horse archers at the start and they will begin with focus on the shielded infantry. If you have a decent amount of archers, they will shred the incoming horse archers if done correctly. TLDR: get the enemies focus on your shield wall/ square and have stationary archers behind them. One of my favorite army comps was sturgian infantry and random faction crossbowmen with shields. I would slow march up to enemies and do the close volleys from behind my shield wall and have the bowmen hold fire and join in melee to break the enemies lines before resuming fire. On defense in battles I should have lost I would have everyone on the field in holdfire shieldwall and let the enemy army waste all of their arrows before proceeding as per normal (given they werent just charging into me)

[@Strat-Guides]

One of the nice things in most campaigns is that even against the Khuzait, they generally won't have more than 1/4 of their army as horse archers and it's not uncommon for a player to have 50% or more archers in their army, so even when outgunned, the numbers make up for it. That's a great idea about turning face enemy off as they will shoot from the back rows once they pass. I should have added that to the video, poop :(

[@siisti_sammeli]

hey youtuber, what works for me vs horse archers is to pre-orient my archers before the horses start rotating the formation, instead of using the default face enemy command. this reduces the movement within the unit, especially on the far edges of the formation and allows the units to keep shooting the entire time they have someone in their vision. counterpoint, you can also use this to disorient enemy archers by yourself on a horse with javs by just running circles around their formation so theyre in a constant move to face the enemy.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that's a good point. I tried it again yesterday, turning off face enemy and they ended up getting a few more kills, but still got stomped lol I think it's almost impossible to counter horse archers with foot archers only in an open battle. But that's okay, it's more of a theoretical test as once we get mixed battles going it will be much easier to counter them :)

[@Kage0s]

Very interesting, did not expect the crossbows to have more range than longbows, especially fians.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah I thought fians would have a bit more range than they did. Only slightly longer than the paletine archers! I wonder if crossbows had more range IRL?

[@dorklymorkly3290]

@@Strat-Guides Were crossbows even used in large scale battles? They were said to be easier to use by the untrained...wheras bows need more skill. But since muscle powered warfare was the bread and butter back then, and even civilians were required to be armed (at least in many European places)...training probably happened anyway. Also, I would guess, not very educatedly, that bows had longer range simply because they had more mass to play with. More everything. The tension is stored in the bow. Edit, apparently crossbows carry more energy but also are affected by air/wind more due to being shorter... apparently, according to some internet stuff, lol. I'd wager a more divisive thing was longbow vs reflex/shortbow. Those might have been used in a more polarized manner.

[@Strat-Guides]

@@dorklymorkly3290 I remember watching a couple youtube videos on it before, but there was nothing conclusive about what was actually used, just testing to see if it was possible. I think the crossbow didn't even shoot 100m lol and it was a pretty heavy duty one at that. Yeah I would be much more concerned about a mass of longbow at 150m than crossbow, but then again I'm no expert :P

[@Kage0s]

@@Strat-Guides I am not educated enough about the current situation with those two weapons, but the historical understanding is that crossbows carried a higher penetrative power but for a shorter range, since the bolt was shorter than the arrow, it fell off quicker. But then again, Bannerlord mixes too many historical periods to have a decent baseline (different cultures not being synchronous or some armors being from a way later age than the weapon set that we have).

[@blazezz1101]

An important thing about dealing with horse archer is to fix the direction your ranged units are facing or else they will spend more time rotating the formation instead of loosing their arrows and bolts. Alternatively, put shield infantry in square formation and hold out until horse archers run out of arrows and switch to cavalry AI. If you want to cheese the battle, place your troops at the edge or corner of the map since the horse archer AI will try to circle around your army but get stuck at the red wall. There are a few maps with cliffs and choke points that either prevents them from circling or funneling them. The best maps IMO to fight horse archers are villages since the fences make them immobile and easy targets for both melee and ranged.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah these are all good points. I was trying to see if a combination of formations would work in open ground using archers only, but it seems they just don't have enough firepower to handle it. I do think terrain is the biggest enemy or cavalry in general :)

[@coreyostrander1763]

Ive always used circle with archers inside. Im shocked that your test showed it as a lossing strategy. Perhaps if you take into effect the extra cost of cav it balances out

[@Strat-Guides]

It will still work, it's just not as effective as other formations. The issue is the damage output relative to the enemy formations. If you have 200 archers and they send only 30 - 40 horse archers, then your formation will still work given the force disparity. But if you were to repeat the same battle, but use loose formation for your archers instead and maybe something to your left flank to keep them from circling, you would see a big increase in kill rate :)

[@fabf77]

The order of advanced can be very practical for some situations. If you are going to charge the enemy with your infantry, this order prevents the archers from standing by or charging melee. If you must fall back because the first wave of infantry fell, with this order you make the archers fall back as the reinforcement archers advance to relatively keep together, avoiding the death of the retreating archers. And against mounted archers, looking for an elevated area and leaving them in a loose formation always works for me, I think the mistake there was trying to get them to cover both sides of the slope, archers waste a lot of time turning and aiming.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah I think all orders have their use, but they are very specific and some are probably not meant to be used in direct melee combat. I went back and tried it again yesterday with face enemy turned off. They did a little bit better, but it was still a stomp lol I think foot archers are nearly impossible to solo horse archers with in open terrain. I was doing my best to find one!

[@fabf77]

@@Strat-Guides is that it was actually a very unlikely test to occur, although it does give a good idea of how superior a good horde of mounted archers can be. Even the Imperials, who have some pitiful mounted archery.

[@captainkielbasa5471]

An 4-unit archer square, facing outwards, (face-enemy off), is capable of defeating mounted archers on open ground. Try it out! thanks

[@captainkielbasa5471]

(loose formation of coursE

[@Brodwyn]

For a fairly consistent way to defeat a strong horse archer force, assuming you yourself can wield a decently tiered army as well: Remember the enemy, being on horseback, cannot shoot to the right. Everyone in Calradia is right handed, therefore they can only bend their arms to the left side when shooting with bows. Using this, position yourself so they can either A: Only run to your left and into a wall/rocks/ledge/whatever else. This nullifies their speed advantage and leaves them bunched up and pretty much spinning in place as you mow them down with arrows or bolts or both. Or B: Assuming you have a fairly balanced army, say, 30% cav, 30% inf, 40% ranged, you can place your infantry infront to make the enemy horse archers get in between your infantry and the archers. Once they go in the middle and get confused and try to run to the left of your archer line, have the cav there waiting and charge in. Alternatively have another force of infantry to catch them if no cav is available. Personally I far prefer A, but B can work... sometimes... Apart from those two... good luck lol Anyways, back to archers, yay! Pretty much as you found on the video, the best way to use archers are as a static machine gun position. Personally I've never used the Advance command, probably because I'm not used to it, but also because archers should always stay static for the best shots. Thing about Mount and Blade is that what affects your fighting, more often than not affects the AI's fighting. This includes moving while shooting making it harder to hit stuff and especially for crossbows, making it impossible to reload. So, always, always have archers static when you want to shoot. Also, at least in my experience, it's better to hold fire in the larger battles (like 1000 vs 1000 -large) until the enemy is close by and then loosing arrows to maximum effect. Rather that than having archers standing there like lemons with their swords out because they already shot arrows at max range and got barely any kills. Another point, why do horse archers beat foot archers; pretty much as discussed. They get to all shoot because what's friendly fire anyway. Horse archers probably don't even know the word 'friend'. One more thing affecting it is that horses are chonky boys in Bannerlord, it feels like every horse is a walking needle cushion, only for arrows. That means that even if a foot archer can land 5 hits where a horse archer can land 1 (hypothetical and not based on any evidence aka just an example) the horse could've absorbed 4 of those with ease, leading to the horse archers en masse coming out ahead. It could also of course just be that the foot archers can't shoot horse archers properly, but I don't think leading their shots is really the issue, at least I haven't noticed it to be and I tend to notice these weird AI behaviors. And finally.... I'm just kidding, that's all I can think of that wasn't mentioned or isn't obvious (like of course archers with two quivers are better than those with one, duh. Double the arrows, twice the fun). Anyhow, another great video on the subject I like the most in Mount and Blade games. I hope I don't remember something later since this is already a lot of stuff to read.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah those are solid plans, I particularly like to use the terrain to defeat horse archers. My goal here was to see if there was any formation or combination of formations that would beat them in a head to head matchup, but it's pretty clear that's not easy to do :) Yeah I was pretty surprised at how quickly the damage dropped off for archers. Especially in those huge battles, it's not hard for archers to run dry before it's even halfway done! Lol "friendly"! I wish my arrows could do that, it would have saved many of my own troop's lives in the Frederick series!! To be honest, I was caught off guard with how even the dismounted archers were in the testing with foot archers. It seems the horse makes an enormous difference and makes me wonder if using foot archers is even worth it? I might try a campaign where all archers will be mounted and used as firing platforms instead of flanking archers.

[@atomisten]

these archer formation tests would be interesting against cavalry. i think against melee cav loose archer formation in stay the line is the best but not sure. sometimes having denser lines help with cavalry being stuck there so they can kill them faster.

[@blakethegreatone2058]

For your cavalry question. Set your troops up on the left boundary of the map. The cavalry can't circle and using infantry and archers you will decimate them. I just put infantry into shield wall and let the arrows rain.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah the edge of the map works really well. I was hoping for something a bit more realistic though :)

[@blakethegreatone2058]

It is a super meta way in my opinion. It works but it's not all that fun. Lol. I enjoy trying to catch horse archers with regular cav and some menavliatons as they are doing their circuit behind my formation. If timed right you can do some serious damage and stall them.

[@Strat-Guides]

Agreed, I try to not cover cheesy stuff in my guides as most of the time they get patched out (or as you said it's not fun).

[@dreamer5234]

The tier by tier test for each factions sounds super useful! Can't wait for those.

[@Strat-Guides]

Once we get through a few more of these tactics guides we will move onto that next :)

[@dreamer5234]

@@Strat-Guides Awesome! Thanks!

[@TheElephantChumpkin]

Hey strat I'd like to start off by thanking you for taking the time to reply to nearly every comment which is unheard of in the KZbin community for the most part. Secondly I'd like to ask a question: why do battanian villages have the best recruitable troops, not sure if it's just my save but I started as empire culture and never touched battanian soil, yet I could recruit tier 4 and 5 troops from them even though I've never leveled relationships? I frequent batannia now to get their troops because the highest imperial troops I get even though they're my highest relation and culture is 3 and 4.

[@Strat-Guides]

No problem, I'm trying! It's getting harder and harder now that more people are watching lol it's a good problem to have :) Interesting, it might have to do with perk selection. There is a perk than increases recruitment from same culture, so if you started as a Battanian character that would help. There are a few others that increase recruitment slots as well without needing relations.

[@TheElephantChumpkin]

@@Strat-Guides yeah I'm not entirely sure, my character is empire but perhaps it has something to do with him being redheaded and named Fergus? Lol

[@Strat-Guides]

@@TheElephantChumpkin Lol that must be it :P

[@mineman633]

Honestly setting up archers in square formation works decently for low level battles against horse archers

[@lecoutcritique8854]

great video. I'm really interested in more test about the height avantage (are all bows made equal as far as range is concerned? how big does the archer skill of the troop matter for range? Same for crossbow ofc).

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that's a good question - there was a small different between imperial archers and fians, but it's hard to say if it's exclusively from the bow, stats or a mix of both? I think it can be testes by equipping companions with the same equipment but different skill and vice versa. I'll have to try that out sometime because I'm curious as well.

[@berenhamilton3321]

I've had decent luck with circle formation using it once the infantry are committed in combat and the cavalry start their charge. With the enemy infantry and archers being in melee and enemy cav scattered around, the archers in circle formation placed behind the action are able to pick off any attacking cav that get stuck in the infantry formation and any that are turning around after a charge. If your infantry fail in melee or the enemy archers are able to resume firing you must go back to loose formation to avoid casualties.

[@Strat-Guides]

Interesting, in each of the tests that I ran it was hard to get circle formation to be effective. I'm wondering if the size of the circle makes a difference? Perhaps it's better for smaller circles than a huge one, since it would have less ranks standing around doing nothing?

[@berenhamilton3321]

​@@Strat-Guides Its definitely a one trick pony sort of formation. Only useable against melee cav and only when your infantry have moved up and are tanking enemy arrows or is in combat with the enemy. Once I've got them on the retreat though its back into loose formation to focus on any stragglers

[@Strat-Guides]

@@berenhamilton3321 As long as you have time to micro and it's producing results, I'm all for it :) Better than the usual F1 + F3 lol I'm curious to see if you were to use loose from the start with archers if your results would be any different?

[@Voshed518]

i would use battanian wildlings against horse archers in a loose line formation that cover a lot of land

[@juxtanner7959]

I always use infantry units to beat horse archers with foot archers. I always divide my infantry into 2 squads to protect my archers from the rear. So if I see a massive horse archer formation, I usually position my archers in the middle of the 2 infantry formations. 2 things can happen here. First is that the horse archers will circle behind the 1st infantry formation and collide with the 2nd inf at the back and die. The second is they succesfully run around in a circle but I think most of them are blocked by the shield wall formation, while my archers can shoot freely. So howerver much they try to circle around they'll get blocked by shields since my archers are between the two formations. Its better if your infantry has throwing weapons too. You can order them to hold and open fire whenever horse archers are running towards their direction. I use this on a no cav run so I think it works.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah I think having some shields to take the aggro makes a huge difference! It's tough when they reach a certain critical mass of horse archers, but fortunately the AI doesn't do that :)

[@Madhattersinjeans]

I'm kind of ok with horse archers outperforming equal tier foot archers. The higher cost of recruiting and training up the horse archers makes them a more important unit imo. Foot archers tend to have a bit lower surviveability than horse archers simply due to being slower but they are easier to come across and fill the ranks. When mixed composition armies face each other the horse archers are only a real threat if they heavily outnumber the enemy like the khuzait forces, but they're for the most part easily beaten by most opposing cavalry. I find them most useful for forcing engagements with the enemy to draw them out of strong positions or as harrassment. I tend to keep them close because dedicated melee cavalry counter them in a lot of situations. Horse archers in general suffer a bit if they're not micro'd properly, once the two armies engage they tend to just run about any old place and lose their effectiveness. The AI isn't that capable in placing them in proper positions and so long as you can destroy the enemy melee cavalry any horse archers are usually dead weight and are more of a nuisance than a real threat. If your army lacks in cavalry then yeah I can see how this might be a problem. But maybe they're supposed to be? They are expensive to recruit can die to enemy melee cavalry if not protected and are not so great in sieges. So in open battle is where they're supposed to be the best I think. It's the only place their great manoeuvrability and firepower can cause the most damage and their speed can chase down fleeing enemies. But they do require babysitting if the enemy have a lot of melee cavalry. Their great speed doesn't matter if their side is losing and their firepower is negated by armies with lots of shields, good armour or cavalry. While they perform well in these tests in equal numbers I think most of the time horse archers are going to be in situations where they are outnumbered by enemy archers. Khuzait forces are kind of unique. Their lower tier horse archers die quite easily and just forcing them into a chokepoint is usually enough to defeat them.

[@Strat-Guides]

That's a good point. I think also the horse tends to soak up a lot of damage for the rider, giving them more survivability as well. Yeah I agree with that. I think the way the AI uses them is pretty poor tactics. I would like to see them use more hit and run rather than "let's circle around this one unit and ignore then rest of the army around them, oh we are riding through 200 infantry shield wall now - dead". Personally, I think both melee and ranged cav should cost more in wages and supplies (food for horses). I would be okay with them costing another 25 - 50% plus some more food per day to make up for the difference. Then maybe the Khuzaits can have a culture bonus to negate some of that etc. It's just annoying to see a freshly destroyed noble respawn with 15 T6 cavalry and be able to stomp a 50 unit party lol

[@davidcarter7880]

Loose formation was a no brainer. Unless the enemy range troops are top shelf, sure hit, expert archers, it is a certainty that not every shot taken will hit exactly what they were aiming at. If the friendly formation is shoulder to shoulder, even if the enemy archer misses their intended target, the friendly formation is packed together enough for the deviation to not matter and instead hit another valid target. By spreading out, this turns the same deviation from a sure hit, to a possible miss.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah very true! It's even more pronounced when the loose formation is spread out in a long thin line.

[@Snikwald]

IMO biggest thing against horse archers and mounted skirmishers is fixed position (blocking autorotate towards the enemy). This way your lines stay in formation and the archers doesn't waste time bumping into each other. This way sometimes number of firing bows is lesser, but works much better in cohesion with other unit types protecting them.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah I should have turned that off, good point. I'll be testing mixed unit combat soon and will be sure that makes it in there.

[@Snikwald]

@@Strat-Guides oh cant wait for it! I usually go for tanky shieldwall, never really cared about shock troops due to arrow weakness. Hope you will sell them better to me and some tactics would be nice as well. Thanks for your work!

[@Strat-Guides]

@@Snikwald Lol shock troops won't be an easy sell I suspect, but I'll do my best!!

[@IMortage]

The biggest advantage of higher ground isn't the better shooting result, it's the extra time until the melee enemy closes the distance, especially cavalry.

[@ladaleenglish6756]

i dont know if anyone else said it but skirmisher troops with throwing weapons will wreck a horse archer especially if you hide them in the trees . i like the wildlings and i just keep them in the general area of my archers if i dont have trees i put them in a square and that seems to work decent .

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that's a good point! In the other video where I tested javelin troops I found them to be the best counter to horse archers as well.

[@ThisOldHat]

circle formation with archers can work as a defense against cav BUT you have to tell them to not to change what direction they face in, otherwise they keep resetting and interrupting their shots.

[@Strat-Guides]

As hard as I tried, I couldn't get it to perform well in my testing. Maybe at really large numbers (500 troops) it doesn't work because the walls are so thick and so few archers are actually shooting? I'm not entirely sure.

[@RemusKingOfRome]

I always put spearmen with my archers. You should test that with Melee cav.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah I used to love doing that back when we could control which group each unit went into. It's a bit harder to do now, but I'll definitely try that out! We are looking at melee cavalry next, so I'll be sure to include some testing with that :)

[@SirNarax]

The horse archer vs archer thing should probably be addressed by Tellworlds. Historically and practically speaking foot archers were absolutely superior to horse archers against one another. Infantry are a smaller target, could loose arrows faster, could use more powerful bows and were more accurate. Horse archers beating infantry archers is as silly a concept as heavier armor giving you less defense. It is also not all that great from a gameplay perspective to have this sort of unit that is just better. Why bother at all with archers when you could just have horse archers? What are the downsides to using them? I honestly thing the unit type needs pretty substantial nerfs most specifically the friendly fire thing which just gives them a huge advantage in firepower unnecessarily. I'd also just make them less accurate and shooting slower. Horse archers are the evolution of a skirmisher unit, if a unit can't reach them they will eventually win but when a horse archer gets into range of someone that can fight back they should lose. Be that them charging into a guy with a spear or entering the range of an archer.

[@Strat-Guides]

It's funny you mention that, I just finished the house archer testing and I'm going to recommend skipping foot archers when possible lol you can just use horse archers that do as much damage from the same range, but have extra HP from the horse AND can move to flank or retreat easily. Oh, and they cost the same per day. Balanced by TW Maths lol

[@Bzorlan]

@@Strat-Guides I read that as extra horsepower from the horse

[@Serocia]

@@Strat-Guides Are dismounted horse archers effectively the same as their normal archer counterparts? Maybe they're worse in sieges specifically? I'm only just getting into Bannerlord so I've been combing these guides and stuff. iirc, a lot of fluff about medieval stuff says *essentially* that horse archers are better in just about every regard minus being more expensive (which is a huge factor back then with how people are trained/equipment given) and, y'know, not being able to use their horses in castles.

[@Strat-Guides]

@@Serocia So as it pertains to Imperial archers(Paletine vs Bucellarii) they seems to perform the same when both are on foot. Yeah the biggest downside to horse archers during a siege is if they go down, you lose the horse it cost to upgrade them. Not the end of the world, but something to consider!

[@Strat-Guides]

@@Bzorlan Haha yeah that can get confusing, I forgot about that :P

[@roffels11-gamingandhistory69]

After some own testing in Bannerlord (version 1.8) archers being in loose/spread out/scatter formation holding position (F1, F1) works best for them. Moving them manually around the battlefield using F1, F1, to avoid melee combat with the enemy, makes even the cheapest archers (e.g. vlandian levy crossbowmen) win again high tier, expensive infantry _if the enemy infantry is distracted_ by, let's say, cheap but mobile cavalry like vlandian squires or khuzait noble sons or khuzait tribesmen. Horse archers, no matter their tier/quality/price, work in combination with archers on foot best, if they are lead _around the enemy_ and only then put on "advance" (F1, F4) while the archers without horse stand in front of the enemy (F1, F1). The constantly distracted enemy gets shot by both sides XD. (Of corse take out the enemy cavalry first!)

[@Strat-Guides]

Interesting, I had not considered pairing horse archers with foot archers, but it makes sense. It's a guaranteed flank.

[@makaramuss]

it seems like best counter for now is soaking their arrows with shields as there is nothing else to do:They are hard to hit by AI since they are fast moving target (changing aim while shooting reduces accuracy and I am sure it effects AI too) and horse archers deal extra damage sometimes because of speed modifiers. Regular archers are hopeless aganist that. But if we are allowed to be cheeky best way to beat them is terrain. Put your back on a mountain or hill (or ... "out of game" area if you are naughty :D) this will make their skirmish weird as they want to run around but they find no space to do so. Don't take me wrong:All of this you still got disadvantage:Power of horse archers is they got superiority at range but also they never get to melee. They die easly aganist melee cavalary so thats the only counter for now. Spears do nothing too as... they don't charge. what horse archers are bad at:They are bad at defending because they want to be moving so they can't hold a terrain. Using this important. They can get there first but you can take it over easly. I think best thing you can do is this: Get crossbow regiments and put your back behind a wall with some shields to hold frontline(Just a bit like 10 to 1 ratio compared to crossbows) if shields are not enough seperate crossbow regiments and assign them to "hold fire" shield wall to soak more arrows with their shields Keep trading with horse archers until their arrows end and when they charge in for melee hold fire with all of your crossbows and go melee. Shield+sword may beat just swords/spears of horse archers but horse archers most of time still win because they killed a lot at early stage of fight giving them a huge lead.

[@Strat-Guides]

Agreed, terrain seems to be the best counter for an even battle. Good point, only the Khan's guard seem to be decent on foot.

[@motasemsalameh1521]

Awesome video! but you got me confused a little about palatines now, they are better than I thought, but I am glad I am currently using imperial crossbows! To counter horse archers, a good thing to do is to stand with a barrier (rocks) to your left and/or place a shield wall in the front/back of your archers, since I noticed that archers target the closer units, and therefore they will target the shield units, but I haven't tested for horse archers. Bonus question 1: is there a way to get your character killed, without cheats? I want my children to succeed me before I conquer everything! Bonus question 2: was that Glenn Gould recording playing at the end?

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that's a great point - using the terrain is an effective way to stop horse archers. I was trying to find out a solution that involved only archer or shielded crossbow units but it seems to be too much of a deficit for the archers to make up for on open terrain :( 1 - None that I am aware of. I've heard that enemy lords can potentially execute you, but have personally never seen it happen before. 2 - Haha amazing ear! Yes it was, he's so distinctive for those that love his playing. I almost exclusively listen to him when I listen to Bach, it's almost a curse because it's difficult to enjoy other's interpretations now.

[@motasemsalameh1521]

@@Strat-Guides 2 - Agreed! however, you can try on period instruments, especially the harpsichord, sometimes it works!

[@Strat-Guides]

That's true, I don't think I've heard Gould playing on anything but piano before. Good point lol

[@Kyuschi]

i'm not sure if it'll hold up under testing, or even be considered a counter really, but the other day i think i managed to get shielded infantry to at least trade positively with horse archers unsupported in a field battle. I put the infantry in square and on advance, the square formation blocked *most* of the arrows as the cav circled, and the square slightly moving due to the advance command caused some of the edges of the cav blob to misjudge their distance and collide with the corners of the square, at whichpoint they had their horse immediately killed under them and fell face first into 20 swords. the uneven ground of an actual battle may have made them a bit more likely to be pushed into my formation, but i would like to know if this "counter" works in testing, at least to thin the horde enough before charging, or if it was just some kind of rng fluke.

[@juicebox6581]

I wonder how drastic the stats would change considering merc crossbows are just slightly better than sharpshooters

[@Strat-Guides]

I'm going to be doing unit vs unit testing soon :)

[@isaacdoggart4879]

Imo you need at least a little cav on the left flank to really counter horse archers, once they are caught on the cav though you can finish it with infantry and archers. Or at least that’s how my last 4-5 wars with the kuzaits has gone.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that's probably one of the easiest and most consistent counters. It turns all of the horse archers into melee mod so they just get stuck and pelted to death. Once we get to mixed unit battles we will try a bunch of methods to see which ones work the best :)

[@Awesomewithaz]

For horse archers if just has to be not cav I'd do 4 groups of inf and 4 groups of archers both in circle formation and spread out. You want want inf with javs or something and either fians or vland sharpshooters pelting them. Use trees if you can of course

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that's a good idea. This test was a bit extreme as you will never run into a 500 man horse archer battle, but i figured at least we would try :) If we can find a solution for the hardest problem, then that solution should work even better for easier situations.

[@Awesomewithaz]

@@Strat-Guides ive seen 300 horse archers in army before from khuzait and it was scary

[@Strat-Guides]

@@Awesomewithaz The only saving grace is they can't field all 300 at once if they have other troops. That's why sometimes I'll jam a bunch of lower tier troops in just to get the numbers up and have the numbers advantage on the field at the start.

[@EnzoVinZ]

The only units that I know that can counter horse archers are heavy shock cavalry like the Sturgian Druzhinniks. Otherwise I just put my heavy infantry in loose and archers in loose and have them occupy the same space -- this will give you a close formation of inf-archer. The infantry effectively catches the arrows with their shield while the archers are free to shoot at the horse archers. However, most of the time it's a losing match in an open field. In the late game with tons of Khan's Guard -- it's hopeless, that's why Khuzaits are not allowed to reach late game.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that's a good point, once the Khuzaits pick up some territory and expand their holdings they can be pretty tough to deal with.

[@crafterofdoom]

to defeat Cav while on foot: water. preferably a bridge. pitch my tent, get a fire going, really make it a cozy campsite.

[@Strat-Guides]

Good idea! They pretty much stop in deep water.

[@MuhammadRafy]

The problem with going against horse archers is that the AI shoots where the horseman is at the time of shooting intead of shooting a bit to the left where the horseman is expected when the arrow reaches him. That is why if you put only one horse archer in action, he will run out of arrows before dying. If taleworlds could fix it, then there could be a bit more balance. When it comes to tactics against horse archers: They are designed to always go to the left of your formation. Therefore you can put your infantry (considering you gave the condition of no horse on our side) regiments on the flanks and archers in the middle. If you put a just long enough distance between the two formations (the centre and the left), the AI will do what it does best - malfunction - and run into the infantry.

[@Strat-Guides]

It's interesting because when I'm on horseback, they lead really well lol 200m or longer headshots all day long if I ride in a straight line. Yeah I really like that tactic, especially with a good set of javelins it can really decimate horse archers. They pause for a moment trying to figure out which way to go and get squashed hard.

[@Darthtater98]

Solid video👍🏼

[@Strat-Guides]

Thank you for watching! I'm working on cavalry this weekend and should have it ready next week :D

[@Papasdapasdapadapadopulos]

After so many fights with Khazuits i have trick. 1 - Put army far away from enemies 2 - Let small space behind you and border of battlefield 3 - Wait till horse archers start encircle. 4 - When they will between your army and border of map, command charge (if u got some cav, use it now for block enemy escape directon) 5 - Most enemy horse archers should stuck it's not guarantee your victory, but should prove early advantage notes: if you command charge to early, enemy horse archers can pull back, you need to wait they will start encircle

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah I think the terrain or the map borders seem to be the best defense against horse archers.

[@kylekelly1167]

I personally only like the advance command for when the enemy wants to sit in the back of the map.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah it's a good command when the danger is low and lots of micro isn't needed.

[@sunshineinabag9956]

Skein dose extra moral damage because it's arrows in the arrow formation

[@Strat-Guides]

Rofl if only that were true! :D

[@danthewatcher9681]

I usually use Loose for Fights against armies with cavalry , or if I have too many archers( btw you can never have too many archers, specially Vlandian Sharpshooters)

[@Strat-Guides]

So true, archers are OP in Bannerlord!

[@danthewatcher9681]

@@Strat-Guides archery is OP in any game set in medieval eras, to a degree even in fantasy games it can be OP Tho in Fantasy settings magic can be the most OP thing ever invented! I just hope they add Flaming arrows to sieges! in the future in Bannerlord and maybe some cauldrons of boiling water!

[@Strat-Guides]

@@danthewatcher9681 Boiling water would be really cool! We need something else for the murder hole :D

[@danthewatcher9681]

@@Strat-Guides also The Khazuit Archers odd to have a heavy Arbalet unit, there they shoot really big Crossbows with they legs like in Hero/Nameless , since they are suppoed to be all of the oriental nations in one, having elements of Mongol, chinese and Korean/japanese in them. Also We need a Katana, I know there's mods, we need areal one, one that hits fast but is not that grate dmg wise. And most importantly have the AI Lobbing rocks at attackers in sieges. Sincerely better AI in sieges and battles and they can add the rest in time, maybe spice up the looter unit roster once you get past level 20, so that looters get a bit more dangerous, maybe have them use better weapons or give them archers as well, or replace them with bandits which have a more varied roster( the bandits that hit caravans you're guarding)

[@The_Hussar]

Great video as usual! What's the background music? I hear harpsichord but I can't tell what's the piece.

[@Strat-Guides]

Thank you! It's Bach's Goldberg Variations :)

[@FunnyEnigma02]

the reason high ground is so good is because more archers can fire it is entirely useless if youre on the peak of the hill but if you keep them on the slope they can fire over the heads of the ones in front of them but when they get close it doesnt change much more than just being in line formations so honsetly just keep them in loose and itll be best

[@BloodHawk31]

Good tests, but I would like to see the same tests with Fian Champions, since those are the archers most people will use, cause they are just OP. Khan's Guard is also something I use with my Fian Champians, Just to get a flank if they have a shield wall, it's a 1000% win. If enemy horse archers get a bit too close to make a significant difference...cheese it, retreat, go into battle again. Also putting archers on the red line creates problems for the enemy horse archers to encircle you, but in my opinion this is also cheesing the system, cause no real battle will have a border and you won't be able to just reset after a charge, so meh, we do as we please, but Fian Champions and Khan's Guard, they are pretty OP for almost any situation.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that's true, Fians are a bit OP :) I'm going to be doing unit vs unit testing soon so that should be interesting. Lol I'm still shocked they still allow that retreat cheese to work! I figured they would have patched it by now. I know what you mean. I try to not cover the cheesy stuff, but I guess I could start doing it briefly.

[@Cassandra112]

yeah, best defense versus horse archers is to just body block them afaik. the A.I. isn't really smart enough to avoid. or to just stop and unleash their arrows. you don't even have to use rocks/edge of map, just send your footmen to the left, then move them into their path as the get closer. while your archers pelt them. Another vid idea to potentially look into. Many Captain perks are not showing up in the army menu. Archer ones in particular. are we sure they are actually working? example. my current Player char has 190 bow or so. bow control, bodkin, quick adjustments and skirmish phase master. none of these show up in Ranged, in the battle formation setup. she also has fury, powerful, and 1h deflect in Athletics. these should also apply to ranged footmen. but do not show up there. and in fact, only Fury shows up in Infantry as well. flexible footwork, 50 throwing shows up in infantry, but not ranged. it should apply to both as well.

[@Strat-Guides]

Good point, I think the best deterrent against cav archers is terrain. I was hoping to find a solution without using that, but it seems a tall task for archer-only army of the same size. Yeah I have that on my list to do some testing. It should be significantly easier to test with the RTS mod since I can take control of any unit :) I'm pretty sure the perks work but just don't show. I remember reading something about it on the forums, but not 100% sure they confirmed it works or not.

[@GrendalTheBeasty]

Only defense I know of to work reliably against horse archers is forcing a close quarters fight. That can be in town or on some of the maps where you can surround yourself with hills.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah it seems that way. I really liked the skirmishers from the previous video, that almost won Vs Khan's guards even. I wasn't able to get even close to this against buccelarii which are pretty weak horse archers.

[@tremeloandtriplets]

shield formation infantry, archers loose + a hill with everything on 1 side. archers are mostly shielded from the flanks and if the horse archers try to engage the archers in melee, the archers will kill them with numbers. i use this with ~75% efficacy and it usually comes down to the comparative price tags between the 2 armies

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that's a solid plan. These tests are meant to be unrealistically difficult as no enemy AI army will run 100% cavalry archers so in a real battle, there are a lot more options to defeat the cav archer. I was just trying to solve the puzzle with archers alone, but I think a more practical way to do it is as you described or a couple other variations.

[@kalebduggar4251]

Can you do a couple tests to help us balance multiplayer? It would seem that cav is at a disadvantage metaly rn. How many cav arch/cav do you need to gain an advantage over different inf type. Especially legionaries.

[@neroclaudius7284]

You don't need the rts mod or whatzit, a fast horse works just fine if you maneuver behind the enemy formation.

[@Strat-Guides]

Agreed, a good mount and some riding skill will do just fine :) I use the mod to help show what things look like overhead, it's a bit easier to tell what's going on that way for the guide. I don't use RTS for actual gameplay though.

[@ivan200804]

I was right, Putin was watching your Frederick the Great videos.

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol Hopefully he was watching my Robin Hood playthrough cause that one ended in horrible defeat :P

[@Jixxor]

Horse archers are such a menace, my god

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah they are a pain. It's a good thing they don't mass them up like the player can. The most I've seen is maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of their total forces, which can be dealt with using a mixed army a bit easier.

[@madijeis4320]

Crossbows seem at their best at around 150m when facing archers, their advantage in projectile speed maximizes there

[@Strat-Guides]

Good point, also I think bow effective range is closer than that so even though they return volleys the damage is pretty small.

[@BonkerzGamer119]

Think this tests are great for mechanics/ interaction but not for tactics, as most army’s should be balanced and this changes the AI behaviour. Best tactic I find for deal with horse archers require using infantry, archers and Calvary in a coordinated attack right at the beginning as they charge at you. I don’t think there should be a formation and troop type that can beat horse archers by themselves as they are more expensive and hard to replace, the reason to bring them is their mobility.

[@dragonzd97]

normal cav is the same price and is just simply countered by infantry holding formation and counter charging. not really a excuse

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah most of these tests are just to see what is the best formation or order to give, assuming all else was equal. That way if we see the enemy approaching with archers in line formation we can be confident our loose formation will win. Or if they come in loose formation, then we need to at least be on a hill or maybe charge they archers with cav to push them back, or risk being out-shot. I think a lot of this will become important once we do mixed battles, but more on the small decision level as opposed to the macro tactical decisions. Not sure if any of that made sense lol It sounded better in my head :P

[@saeer5038]

From my experience those videos are very useful because you never have equal army size. It's good to know how you should play when you find yourself leading 600 archers in 800 troops army.

[@teun911]

Infantry circle coverage for archer circle coverage is way better than shown, you need to set both circles closer to each other however...

[@McCbobbish]

Will you be taking a look at mixed formations?

[@Strat-Guides]

Yup! Next up will be melee cavalry, then horse archers, then mixed battles :)

[@MrSedrack]

So I'll give you my counter to Khuzaits as Sturgia. I put the bulk of my infantry in a shieldwall, at least 3 men thick. right behind them, in a long line shock troops like Heroic Line Breaker. Behind them archers in Loose. Idea is that while the horse archers are shooting the shields in vain, my Archers are shooting them, at least killing their horses. Once they run out of arrows or bring melee cav into range and they slam into the shield wall, most get stopped and cut down, but those who flank or get past the shield wall are met with greataxes immediately by the Line Breakers. Notice that I don't have any Cav. If you have cav, this would be the moment to give them a charge order. My idea was always for the ShieldWall to hold and archers to turn cavalry into infantry by killing their horses. Once their horses are gone, they're no match for Sturgian infantry.

[@R업로드용]

Maybe you could turn on face the direction(fixing formation), without it footarchers continously change their formation and their dmg dealing becomes inefficient. but Turning on the option doesn't mean that all T5 footarchers can beat horse archers. This is because shooting ai itself is difficult to respond to Horsearchers fast and agile movement.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah I think you're right, they lose a lot of efficiency when moving around and turning. I noticed the same thing as the would die, certain formations took a long time for troops to move to their new spot which meant less damage output and a snowball effect towards to loss.